Model Airplanes

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), the University of South Alabama, and Singapore University of Technology and Design have successfully injected malicious code into a computer which, in turn, added invisible commands to a file containing a 3D model of a drone propeller. When they printed the model and attached it to the drone, the propeller broke upon take-off. This killed the drone.

In short, the exploit, codenamed Dr0wned, was able to modify a digital file that, in turn, destroyed a physical device.

“Imagine that an adversary can sabotage functional parts employed in an airplane’s jet engines. Such an attack could cost lives, cause economic loss, disrupt industry, and threaten a country’s national security,” said researcher Yuval Elovici, a professor at BGU. “With the growth of additive manufacturing worldwide, we believe the ability to conduct malicious sabotage of these systems will attract the attention of many adversaries, ranging from criminal gangs to state actors, who will aim either for profit or for geopolitical power.”

The attack works by hiding instructions inside a model file like an STL. These instructions make the printer appear to print a normal, solid part, but with a fatal flaw. When you use the piece in a working machine it quickly fails, destroying the part and the machine. The researchers injected malicious code into a plastic propeller and quickly destroyed a $1,000 drone in their tests.

The exploit requires control over the victim’s computer. It begins with a phishing

Article source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/21/researchers-sabotage-3d-printer-files-to-destroy-a-drone/

Iridium Communications, a $790 million satellite telecommunications company based in McLean, Va., was gearing up to launch the first of a new generation of satellites when the news came in from Cape Canaveral. A rocket—the very same type expected to carry Iridium’s new satellites into orbit—had exploded, mere months before Iridium’s own launch was scheduled. An investigation into the mishap would set back future launches indefinitely. The roll-out of Iridium’s new $5 billion satellite constellation, the backbone of its entire business model, was off to an inauspicious start.

All of this happened in 1997, when Iridium first set out to blanket the globe with satellite-based connectivity. (The rocket, a Lockheed Martin Delta II carrying an Air Force GPS satellite, exploded shortly after liftoff in January of that year.) Almost two decades later, it’s not unreasonable for Iridium CEO Matt Desch to feel déja vu. His company was preparing to launch a new, much-improved constellation of communications satellites—that is, until the explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the launchpad last month put those plans on hold.

“It’s a bit of an echo of the first time around,” Desch says. “Maybe this will create the good luck we had last time.”

The good luck to which Desch refers has to do with the eventual successful launch of Iridium’s existing constellation of satellites in 1997 and 1998. (It has very little to do with the company’s subsequent Chapter 11 bankruptcy, at the time one of the largest in U.S. history,

Article source: http://fortune.com/2016/10/22/iridium-satellites-airplanes/

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), the University of South Alabama, and Singapore University of Technology and Design have successfully injected malicious code into a computer which, in turn, added invisible commands to a file containing a 3D model of a drone propeller. When they printed the model and attached it to the drone, the propeller broke upon take-off. This killed the drone.

In short, the exploit, codenamed Dr0wned, was able to modify a digital file that, in turn, destroyed a physical device.

“Imagine that an adversary can sabotage functional parts employed in an airplane’s jet engines. Such an attack could cost lives, cause economic loss, disrupt industry, and threaten a country’s national security,” said researcher Yuval Elovici, a professor at BGU. “With the growth of additive manufacturing worldwide, we believe the ability to conduct malicious sabotage of these systems will attract the attention of many adversaries, ranging from criminal gangs to state actors, who will aim either for profit or for geopolitical power.”

The attack works by hiding instructions inside a model file like an STL. These instructions make the printer appear to print a normal, solid part, but with a fatal flaw. When you use the piece in a working machine it quickly fails, destroying the part and the machine. The researchers injected malicious code into a plastic propeller and quickly destroyed a $1,000 drone in their tests.

The exploit requires control over the victim’s computer. It begins with a phishing

Article source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/21/researchers-sabotage-3d-printer-files-to-destroy-a-drone/?ncid=mobilenavtrend